Lecture 7 The Isolationist Moment

Question 1

Europhobia

Answer 1

✓ Short term: Europe responsible for origins/outcome WWI
✓ Long term: US exceptionalism v. Europe
✓ FDR: convictions and expediency - “What a thoroughly disgusting spectacle so-called civilized man in Europe is making himself!”

Question 2

The Monroe Doctrine

Answer 2

1823

Question 3

Nye Committee (Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry)

Answer 3

1934 - The committee investigated the financial and banking interests which underlaid United States’ involvement in World War I, and was a significant factor in public and political support for American neutrality in the early stages of World War II

Question 4

Ludlow Amendment

Answer 4

1935-40 - a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States which called for a national referendum on any declaration of war by Congress, except in cases when the United States had been attacked first. Public support declined as the US got closer to joining the war (1935, 75% - 1939, 51%).

Question 5

Neutrality Acts

Answer 5

1935-37

Question 6

Cash and Carry clause

Answer 6

1937 clause to Neutrality Acts - allowed the US to trade with belligerents who paid cash and transported the goods on non-U.S. vessels.

Question 7

Limits and Contradictions of the Isolationist

Turn

Answer 7

✓ Politically expedient (FDR and internationalist elites did
not believe in it)
✓ Inconsistency: selective application, focus on Europe

Question 8

FDR foreign policy fronts

Answer 8

✓ Disengagement from Europe (Balance of Power + Underestimation of Hitler)
✓ Asia-first approach and fear of Japan

Question 9

Fireside chats

Answer 9

Series of 30 evening radio addresses given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.

Question 10

Invasion of China by Japan

Answer 10

1937 - yellow peril

Question 11

Quarantine speech

Answer 11

1937

Question 12

Stimson Doctrine

Answer 12

7 January 1932

Non-involvement but refusal to recognize Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Question 13

Election of FDR

Answer 13

4 March 1933

Question 14

Good Neighbor Policy

Answer 14

The policy’s main principle was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America. It also reinforced the idea that the United States would be a “good neighbor” and engage in reciprocal exchanges with Latin American countries.[1] Overall, the Roosevelt administration expected that this new policy would create new economic opportunities in the form of reciprocal trade agreements and reassert the influence of the United States in Latin America; however, many Latin American governments were not convinced.

Question 15

Plan “orange”

Answer 15

Hypothetical war plan against Japan

Question 16

Lima Conference

Answer 16

1938 - Resolution against Nazi doctrines + reassertion of inter-American solidarity.